A fresh oil spill has hit the Opu Nembe Kingdom in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, occurring on October 1, 2025, from an 8-inch delivery line operated by Nembe Eastern Exploration and Production Company Ltd (formerly Aiteo) near the Santa Barbara well in OML 29. The incident has reignited fears among residents still recovering from the devastating, month-long 2021 Santa Barbara oil blowout.
The community’s legal team, Ntephe Smith and Wills, comprising Iniruo Wills and Dr. Dickson Omukoro, accused Nembe Eastern Exploration and Production Company Ltd of poor crisis management and disregard for its host community in a letter addressed to the company’s Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Manager, Augustine Amaka Bisong. The spill was only communicated to the community on October 5, four days after it occurred, via a request for a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) slated for October 6, which the Opu Nembe leadership rejected, citing “a show of disrespect” and rescheduling it to October 9, 2025.
“Our clients deserve adequate notice to assemble a competent JIV team, some of whom travel from Lagos, Port Harcourt, or Yenagoa,” the letter emphasized, underscoring concerns over manipulation of the JIV process. The community has demanded a thorough investigation into the latest spill, assessment of environmental and health impacts, and prompt remediation measures to safeguard residents whose livelihoods depend on fishing and farming.
“Beyond this spill, our clients demand a top-level engagement between the company, the community’s technical team, and regulators to establish a lasting framework that ends this continual environmental burden,” the correspondence added. Nembe Eastern Exploration and Production Company Ltd, which took over OML 29 from Shell Petroleum Development Company in 2015, has faced multiple spill-related controversies in Nembe.
The Opu Nembe Kingdom is also embroiled in a legal battle against the company at the Federal High Court in Yenagoa (Suit No. FHC/YNG/CS/284/2024), seeking compensation and environmental justice over three major spills between 2019 and 2020. The community’s counsel expressed frustration over repeated adjournments allegedly sought by the company’s lawyers in a letter dated October 7, 2025. “Our clients, who depend on oil-polluted waters for daily survival, view these delays as unnecessary and insensitive,” it stated, criticizing what they see as evasion of liability.
Environmental advocates have called for specialized environmental courts to expedite oil pollution cases in the Niger Delta, noting Bayelsa State has only one Federal High Court division handling petroleum-related disputes, contributing to chronic delays. The Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission’s 2023 report indicated 25 percent of Niger Delta oil spills occur in Bayelsa, pointing to weak regulatory oversight and industry interference flaws in the JIV process.
Residents describe the situation as “a recurring cycle of neglect, pollution, and injustice,” leaving lasting damage on their environment and livelihoods.
